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KU Hospital annual revenue grows by 22 percent, surpasses $1 billion

Westwood  Kansas University Hospital's continuing growth was on display with the release of its most recent annual financial numbers Tuesday.

The hospital's total revenue grew by 22.2 percent during the 2012 fiscal year, eclipsing $1 billion for the first time. Also during the fiscal year, the hospital's capital expenditures totaled $117.1 million, a decrease of about $24 million from the year before but still a marked increase over previous years' totals.

The fiscal year ran from July 2011 to June 2012. The hospital announced figures for the year as the KU Hospital Authority board of directors met Tuesday.

The hospital's revenue, which reached $1.06 billion, was bolstered by its merger with the Kansas City Cancer Center, which was completed in June 2011.

Bob Page, the hospital's president and CEO, said its ever-growing revenue has also been helped by the broader base of patients it is attracting. During the last fiscal year, he said, KU Hospital treated patients from 49 of 50 states, as well as all 105 counties in Kansas.

"We've really become a destination facility for patients across the country," Page said.

During the 2012 fiscal year, the hospital's capital expenditures totaled less than the $141.2 million reached during the 2011 year, as the hospital completed construction of a new Medical Office Building. Capital spending during that year was a 146 percent increase from the year before, though.

Capital projects for the hospital during the 2012 year included the completion of a three-and-a-half floor expansion of its Center for Advanced Heart Care, further development of its electronic records system, six newly constructed operating rooms and seven newly required operating rooms at its Indian Creek campus.

Page said much of the hospital's capital spending went toward updating facilities and technology that fell behind the times when the hospital was under state control before 1998.

"It's trying to keep up with technology," Page said. "It's trying to renovate units that are still 1970s vintage units in our hospital."

Growing along with the hospital's revenue in the 2012 fiscal year was its support of the KU Medical Center, which increased by 21 percent and reached a record $106.7 million. That funding goes toward faculty salaries, recruiting packages for new faculty, academic programs and more.

"We are an academic medical center, and in order to be an academic medical center you need to make sure that all partners are strong on the campus," Page said.

Since the Hospital Authority took control of the hospital in 1998, it has made a combined $888 million in capital expenditures and increased from about 2,200 employees to nearly 5,900.

During the Hospital Authority's board meeting, the hospital chief operating officer, Tammy Peterman, said its patient satisfaction scores were improving so far during the current fiscal year.

She said satisfaction ranked in the 93rd percentile among large hospitals nationally during the current quarter, and it ranked in the 86th percentile for the fiscal year to date.

And that improvement has come while patient satisfaction has risen at hospitals across the country, Peterman said. The hospital's satisfaction scores in fiscal year 2008 ranked in the 88th percentile, she said, but those same scores today would fall in the 62nd percentile.

"The bar is just continuing to go up," Peterman said.

Peterman also told board members that the hospital gave about 3,200 flu shots during its annual free drive-thru vaccination event in October, and its annual Treads and Threads fundraiser netted a record of more than $900,000.

I was recently an inpatient at KU Hospital. The care I received from floor personnel was exemplary. They really care for their patients, and it shows. We are truly blessed to have this facility to utilize for healthcare needs!